About Me

Since the 1990s I have been very involved with fighting the military "don't ask don't tell" policy for gays in the military, and with First Amendment issues. Best contact is 571-334-6107 (legitimate calls; messages can be left; if not picked up retry; I don't answer when driving) Three other url's: doaskdotell.com, billboushka.com johnwboushka.com Links to my URLs are provided for legitimate content and user navigation purposes only.
My legal name is "John William Boushka" or "John W. Boushka"; my parents gave me the nickname of "Bill" based on my middle name, and this is how I am generally greeted. This is also the name for my book authorship. On the Web, you can find me as both "Bill Boushka" and "John W. Boushka"; this has been the case since the late 1990s. Sometimes I can be located as "John Boushka" without the "W." That's the identity my parents dealt me in 1943!

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Even under Obamacare, insurance companies can charge women
more for long term care insurance than they charge men. Only two states, Colorado and Montana,
prohibit the practice.

Insurance company statistics show that women spend about
twice as much on long term care benefits as men, because women are likely to
live longer by several years. Husbands
are often cared for by wives, who then have to depend on adult children or
caregivers if they become disabled, or go into assisted living facilities or nursing
homes.

It appears that gender-based pricing has been starting this year, in 2013.

In late 2009, when I was looking after my mother and visited
the Emeritus in Arlington, I was told that 70% of the Alzheimer’s patients were
female.

Single premium policies, at least for people under 70, may
be cheaper. At age 68, I purchased a
single premium policy from Lincoln for $100,000, which functions as a life
policy that earns policy dividends and maintains a surrender value. I think the max benefit is about $4500 a
month and there is a lifetime cap.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

The following is the proposed text for the last section of the chapter on eldercare in my "DADT-3" book.

I felt a certain shame in the way I lived during the 88
months “at home” after I returned to look after mother. It would have been all right had the care
taken place in a home that I had set up, under a relationship that I had also
established. I felt a bit like a parasite. And I had lost a lot of freedom. In part, I was a sixty-something living with
his mother.

I did resent “emotion” and “attentiveness” and even
protective combativeness being expected of me when I had never “signed up for
it”, by marrying and having children. On
the other hand, having my own children would have made all of this make sense
psychologically, because then I would have had “my family”. In fact, I recall a
conversation, around 2006 or so, when Mother said she wondered if I had much
regard for “my” (“your”) family, when I hadn’t procreated one. I wondered she had gotten wind of the online
attention I was getting. I was indeed
constantly afraid that someone would make a flame and I would have to take
everything down. That never quite happened.
I survived. (There’s a saying: “I became a celebrity so I could never
get fired.”)

In fact, having a family is a natural result of becoming
attentive to “the real needs of other people.”
It doesn’t cause it. So my
problem is that I dropped attentiveness and gone my separate way early in life
because “social combat” had proved too shameful. After years of relatively prosperous “urban exile”, much of
it (pre-Internet) lived as a double-life, I was needed after all.

It is certainly mistaken to believe that “personal
responsibility” is only about honoring promises and “contracts” that one
“chooses” to make. Or perhaps it’s a
mistake to think that ethics and character are just about “personal
responsibility” in that narrow sense. It
seems, that both legally and morally, one has certain family responsibility and
some duties to community regardless of choice, and that some of this becomes
very personal (not just financial) in
nature. The scope of that responsibility
changes as society and technology change.
In the past we had a military draft.
Today, we practically have to conscript adult children into eldercare if
we want people to live longer. As a
corollary, we find a lot more can be done for the disabled than in the past
(when I was growing up), but only if ordinary people will rally to support the
efforts socially. And we’re finding that we’re having to expect
more personal attentiveness from people if we expect to ease growing social
tensions and sustain our freedoms. Some
of that attentiveness may mean, as a policy matter, that we can no longer afford
to shut off a third of our adults from the prospect of having and raising
children. All of this has profound
implications for how we view the “purpose” of marriage and family, which is
increasing becoming a “result” rather than just a “cause”. I certainly learned my own lesson in “demographic
winter”.

I do have my own spin on the “equality” debate. Ironically, it has turned out for me at
least, the real issue for “equality” matters as much, or even more, for those who try to live “standing
alone” as those who marry (for the “1000” benefits), even in a same-sex
scenario. As previous generations knew,
under different circumstances perhaps, people will always have to meet the
needs of others, way beyond what happens in an economic market system. The practical reality is, if you don’t create
your own family (and hopefully have fully equal rights), you’re likely to be called on to make
sacrifices for those who do. You will
feel like “second class”. You will face
assignment, expropriation (to support the heterosexual passions of others), even
“purification”. I remember that
sometimes well-meaning people would ask me if I would feel proud of my mother’s
reaching 100 (she reached 97). They
“missed the point”.

The “landing” left me relatively well-off, although not
forever. Ten more years of productive
life would be OK. I can’t see the
“morality” in expecting heroic or unusually invasive procedures (like
transplants) for me, after age 75 or 80 or so.
I can’t see going through what my mother did. Technology, however, is making many life-extending
procedures less invasive, and I can certainly see how I could deal with some of
them. I still want to be a “good guy”
and not part of the Medicare problem.
But the real way to become “good” is accepting a little of the paradox
of the “Rich Young Ruler” Gospel parable.

As for my own religious beliefs, watching my mother’s
passing did make me revisit how I see things.
I was impressed with the fact that she had a last supper, a last good
day, and months before, a last day where she was free on her own. We would reverse the time arrow and walk back
through her life (as a relativistic thought experiment only). I also had to ponder my own attitude toward
other generations, and how I carry on after I’m gone, and my previous
indifference to the idea of having children.
I think that our consciousness carries on a sense where we “know” a lot
more, especially about our deepest intentions and the intentions and thoughts
of others around us – but we cannot “experience”, unless we are born again
(possibly reincarnated, maybe even on other planets). I talked about the Rosicrucians in the third
chapter of the first book.

I can see how some people could say that I shouldn’t be
spending time writing or on media, but should be involved in sheltering and
providing for other people – the intrinsic “poor” – even if from a socially
“inferior” position. That probably could
have been required. It wasn’t, but I see
the point. I can only say that I still
have an ego (despite my balding legs) I want to see my music produced, a novel out,
and a film about all of this. After
that, things won’t be the same.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Prolonged furloughs of federal employees because of
sequestration could have significant effects on the ultimate values of their
401(k)-like retirement plans, because federal contributions to the Thrift
Savings Plan (TSP) would stop, or be otherwise reduced.

The story appears in the Washington Post on the Federal Eye page Tuesday, written by
Eric Yoder, link here

When people are permanently laid off and receive severance
from private companies, typically matching contributions continue. Mine did, when I took out a biweekly payout
until the amount ran out (after 24 weeks, back in 2002). I still left ING with
a 401(k) balanced in relatively good shape.

When I worked for the federal government (Navy Department, NAVCOSSACT) in 1971-1972, I did not pay Social Security FICA, but made a contribution to the federal retirement program instead, which I could take out a lump sum (to buy a car) when I left for private industry. Pretty reckless of me at the time.

Federal employees began a switch to Social Security in
1984. The history is complicated, but is
explained here by Social Security at this link.

I do remember paying FICA and Medicare tax when working for Census in 2010
and 2011.

Monday, February 18, 2013

The Washington Post greeted readers on Presidents’ Sunday
morning with a detailed and grim story by Margaret A. Fletcher, “Future
retirees at greater fiscal risk; majority may be worse off than parents;
savings shortfall threatened decades of progress”, link here.

The article chases the history of Social Security, Medicare,
and private pension systems, but the basic reasons the problems are mathematics
and demographics. People are living
longer, there are fewer children, and employers are not inclined to increase wages
or offer more high paying jobs.
Employers are freezing pensions, sometimes even terminating them, and
sometimes not even offering 401(k) matches.

It’s a sustainability problem, in a culture that does not
care as much about the future in a personal way as it used to.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

I got a call from a “financial planner” at Wells Fargo last
week, saying that now is the time for retired people to think more about stocks
again (at least 25% of a portfolio).
That sounds a little optimistic, because stocks have already risen a
lot, and could go down again if there is some other hit.

He also said that this is not the time to own a lot of
utility stocks, which are almost like “bonds”.
They pay excellent dividends.

Utilities could face major expenses as they come under
pressure not only to buttress their nuclear plant safety (a plant in Florida
will never reopen), but also buttress the power grid, particularly against
potential solar storms in the near future.
This will surely be very expensive.

Furthermore, restoration work after major Earth weather
events (like Sandy and the recent Noreaster) is costing a lot more.

My parents did have a lot of utilities, and a lot of oil, all of their lives. Because consumers always need these, they did well over several decades. They helped pay for my mother's care.

I bought some Exxon (then Mobil) in 1977 for about $600. Now its worth 20-30 times that. It's still in my IRA. Am I one of the "exploitation class" destroying the planet?

Furthermore, a natural gas well in Ohio (related to Marcellus Shale) largely paid for my aunt's care in her last years. Energy equities are what saved me and our family.

Thursday, February 07, 2013

The Economist (Feb. 2, 2013) has an interesting proposal for
the whole concept of pension and social security reform, to take into account
longer lifespans and demographics automatically.

The article (in “Free Exchange”) maintains that Social
Security is a “defined benefit” bur “Pay as you go” (PAYG) scheme, logically an
oxymoron.

The idea of a “notional defined-contribution” plan (NDC) is
implemented in Sweden and is effectively a quasi-annuity with payouts adjusted
(usually reduced) automatically as demographic statistics demand. If US Social Security were converted to such
a system, beneficiaries would have a legal enforceable “property right” to
their benefits (because of the definition of “defined contribution”), but only
as scaled back automatically for demographics.

Implementing such a plan would certainly make Social
Security sustainable (although there could be short term accounting problems
with effectively “double contributions” to make up for those who didn’t pay in enough). It would also remove any idea that it is “welfare”
or should be progressive and would lead to gradually reduced benefits, even for
current beneficiaries. Therefore it
would be likely to meet political resistance, especially from liberals.

The "notional defined contribution" concept expresses the philosophy that you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others. It's not clear that the World agrees with this ideas as much as some of us would like.

Wednesday, February 06, 2013

I did a Google search on “filial responsibility laws” a
couple days ago, and noticed a tremendous explosion on links to article on the
subject, since 2007, where there was relatively little. Now (in early 2013) there are about fifty
pages of results, and the postings on this blog mostly appear around page 44.

The stories are largely from media outlets (often clones)
and law firms, and many of them talk about the recent case in Pennsylvania that
broke lose last May.

Generally, lawyers are concerned that in the future states
may be more likely to pursue adult children, given the crimping of their state
budgets. Many of them say that the laws have been
little used in the recent past, and are a drawback to the “poor laws” from
England that would have come over in colonial times. The situation in Pennsylvania seems to be
particularly provocative, and apparently seems to invite providers (like
nursing homes) to go after family members first.

The issue certainly has an impact on the debate over “family
values” and marriage. It is certainly
not true that legally-driven family responsibility is limited to a decision to
engage in behavior that can result in having children.

Wikipedia doesn’t (yet) have an article yet on filial
responsibility laws (yes, maybe I should write one – where will I make the
time?) but there is an article on filial piety (in Confucian sense) here. AWikipedia article would need to detail all state, provincial or country laws and that would be difficult to track down and give all the url's for. I've done that for some states on this blog (particularly in July 2007).

Sunday, February 03, 2013

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released an American Time Use
Survey (actually conducted by Census by sampling – I used to work on a similar
Current Population Survey or CPS) which reports on the time Americans are
spending on eldercare.

Adults 45-64 were the most likely to be personally involved
in eldercare, and more than half were women (no surprise).

23% of care providers had minor children of their own.

The AARP has a worksheet, from Nov. 12, 2012, “Can I get
paid as a caregiver?” and in some states
this is possible from public funds, link (wesbite url) here. If the elder parent has assets, it may be
possible to be paid, but then there are tax consequences (check with an attorney
). I see a posting on the issue Nov. 30,
2012 and will return to it later.

“Friend in Action Boise” produced the video above, “Caregiving:
The Universal Occupation”.,

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